“They are free to express themselves the way they want to express, but my job is to protect my players and I think Romelu is one of the players that should be untouchable in terms of the respect from everyone.”

And he has addressed criticism again in his Benfica programme: “I hope tonight we can do just as good a job, take another big step towards the knockout stages of the Champions League and I hope that you enjoy the game more than some of you did against Tottenham .”